Dems' 'Fairy Dust' Energy Plan

Dems' 'Fairy Dust' Energy Plan
By Mackubin T. Owens

After the Democrats took control of Congress last year, party leaders said that one goal of the new majority was "to achieve energy independence, strengthen national security, grow our economy and create jobs, lower energy prices and begin to address global warming."

Yet the Democrats' energy bills do just the reverse - thwarting energy independence by taxing oil producers and keeping substantial reserves of oil and natural gas locked up, while favoring "fairy dust" alternative energy and fuel sources that won't be able to compete with oil and gas for decades (if ever).

Now that Congress' is back, a major order of business will be to iron out the differences between the House and Senate energy bills and bring the final version to the floor. But it will be a compromise between two sets of bad ideas.

The House bills, sponsored, respectively, by Reps. Charles Rangel and Nancy Pelosi, do nothing to increase oil and gas production in America - which is necessary if we're to reduce our dependence on imports. Indeed, they would make it more difficult to produce oil and gas, adding new limits on access to domestic reserves and raising costs to producers - by levying $16 billion in taxes on oil companies by repealing a tax credit for exploration, production and refining and by changing the tax treatment of overseas oil-related income.

The House's measures also raise false hopes by promoting the fiction that "renewable" energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels can replace oil and gas in an economically viable manner any time soon, mandating that 20 percent of electricity be generated from renewable-energy sources.

more...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09262007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/dems_fairy_dust
_energy_plan.htm